Best Boy

For fans of TheCurious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime comes this landmark novelabout autism, memory, and, ultimately, redemption.

Sent to a“therapeutic community” for autism at the age of eleven, Todd Aaron,now in his fifties, is the “Old Fox” of Payton Living Center. Ajoyous man who rereads the encyclopedia compulsively, he is unnerved by thesudden arrivals of a menacing new staffer and a disruptive, brain-injuredroommate. His equilibrium is further worsened by Martine, a one-eyed newresident who has romantic intentions and convinces him to go off his meds tofeel “normal” again. Undone by these pressures, Todd attempts anescape to return “home” to his younger brother and to a childhood thatnow inhabits only his dreams.

Written astonishingly inthe first-person voice of an autistic, adult man, Best Boy—with itsunforgettable portraits of Todd’s beloved mother, whose sweet voice still singsfrom the grave, and a staffer named Raykene, who says that Todd “reflectsthe beauty of His creation”—is a piercing, achingly funny, finallyshattering novel no reader can ever forget.